The Birth of a BookThere I was back in February of 2010 hard at work on The Cat’s Meow (a light hearted paranormal romantic suspense along the lines of a psychic Stephanie Plum) when I got hit by a nasty virus. This virus kept me awake night after night. I lost interest in writing, eating, walking, gardening, watching television. I completely lost interest in all the ordinary things I had been doing for years. This virus was incredibly insidious; it attacked me in my most vulnerable area—my self control, or my lack thereof.
Yeah, this virus was hard-core and it had a name. The Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Once it infected me, it bore in deep and spread out. It compelled me to read all six books in less than a week. From Wrath’s book to Rooster’s book I existed on pop tarts, coffee and two hours of semi-dosing a night.
While that virus called the Black Dagger Brotherhood spread throughout me all I could think about were the brothers. Even my semi-dosing dreams were full of these vampire warriors. Once I’d turned the last page on Revenge’s story I went back and read the entire series again—first book to last. That took me another week. This was followed by yet another week of lying around and day dreaming about those sexy vampire warriors.
Except by this time lack of sleep, lack of nutrition and lack of exercise took their toll and I came down with a nasty cold.
After a couple of miserable nights where my head and body ached so bad I couldn’t even concentrate on my BDB love, I broke down and dosed myself up good with Nyquil and went to bed early. As usual the cough meds gave me vivid, hallucinatory dreams. Only this time they weren’t of massive vampire warriors. No, these dreams were of lethal, SEAL warriors instead.
They were the most vivid, three dimensional dreams I’ve ever had. Yeah, dreams—as in plural. I had variations of the same dream five nights in a row. In the dreams a blond woman arrives at the departure gate for a flight to Hawaii sees these three lethal looking, sexy men leaning against the far wall, and she almost faints. She recognizes them, which is impossible since she’s never met them before. But they are the same men she’d dreamed about the night before. Three men who died in a barrage of bullets while trying to prevent the hijacking of this very plane bound for Hawaii.
A dream within a dream.
That’s how Forged in Fire started.
At first I shrugged the dream off. But I kept having it night after night. It just wouldn’t leave me alone. Eventually, that damn dream started haunting me during the day. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So I sat down and wrote the scene out, typed out everything that I’d dreamed through the previous nights. This was supposed to excise the dream from my thoughts. Instead, the characters rocketed to life and took over. And they had no intention of letting me drop the story. Nope, they demanded my full attention and they wanted their story told NOW.
From the beginning Forged in Fire was an odd book. I’d never dreamed an opening scene before. Nor had I ever started a book without the entire manuscript already plotted from beginning to end. In this case I had no clue who the bad guys were, I had no clue why they were so set on hijacking that plane and I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen once the hijacking was foiled.
Yeah, the book was a serious, hair-pulling challenge and I blame every moment of it on that virus called the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Forged in FireBy Trish McCallan
Genre: paranormal romantic suspense
Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before.
Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm.
As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.
"Forged In Fire is a smoking hot adventure with an irresistible alpha hero. Danger, action, suspense, and a steamy romance make a story that's impossible to put down!" ~Patti O'Shea, National Bestselling Author of Through a Crimson Veil
Available at Amazon B&N Smashwords
About the Author:
Trish McCallan has been writing for as long as she can remember.
In grade school she wrote children’s stories, illustrating them with crayons and binding the sheets together with pencil-punched holes and red yarn. She used to sell these masterpieces at her lemonade stand for a nickel a book. Surprisingly, people actually bought them. Like, all of them. Every night she would have to write a new batch for her basket.
As she got older her interest changed to boys and horses. The focus of her literary masterpieces followed this shift. Her first full length novel was written in seventh grade by pencil in a notebook and featured a girl, a horse and a boy. At the end of the book the teenage heroine rode off into the sunset . . . with the horse.
These days she sticks to romantic suspense with hot alpha heroes and roller-coaster plots. Since she is a fan of all things bizarre, paranormal elements always seem to find a way into her fiction. Her current release, Forged in Fire, was the result of a Black Dagger Brotherhood reading binge, a cold, a bottle of NyQuil and a vivid dream.
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11 comments:
I suffered from the same virus. I love that series and so I am sure I will love yours. Great post!
debby236 at gmail dot com
Hey Debby,
I'm still suffering from that virus. lol
Out of the blue I'll get hit with a compelling urge to reread the entire series. But someone just introduced me to Caris Roane's Ascension, hopefully this book will vaccinate me for a while!
A big Thank YOU to Roxanne for hosting my blog tour kick off, as well as setting this tour up!
I appreciate everything you've done for me!
I love that BDB series! I am so excited to read this book. I just love it when authors tell how the book came about. And there is something so exciting about Alpha males.
Tammy
jfarms74338@gmail.com
WOW...loved reading that and learning how you came up with your story! Great post Trish. And I've read the excerpt before, but now that I know some of the background, I'm even more intrigued!
Yep, I think quite a few people came down with that virus. I find mine reoccuring at times. Very cool way for a storyline to come to you. I myself, rarely remember my dreams, however tey aren't reoccuring. Can't wait to rad the book. Love the hot alpha males.
mnjcarter@charter.net
I just read the fist book of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. I didn't like it at first but then it got good.
If your series is close to that one I think you got a winner on your hands.
I got a cold right now. But I blame mine on editpalooza.
Take care and keep dreaming up the sexy men.
Janice~
Tammy,
Alpha heroes are my favorites. When you add an alpha warrior brotherhood to the mix, that just sweetens the pot. That's why I love the BDB so much. Not just because of the sexy love stories, but because of the ties between the alpha heroes.
Christine,
Thanks for stopping by!
The funny thing is that months after I started working on FiF, I dreamed the opening to Cosky's book too. At the time that scene didn't even make sense, since I hadn't reached the point in Forged yet where Cosky's life goes to hell.
Now though, it works perfectly, although it may not end up being the opening scene.
mnjcarter,
My reoccurring virus hits every spring when the new BDB book is about to be released, how about yours? lol
I feel this compelling need to reread the entire series before starting the new book.
And yeah,there is something so sexy about those lethal alpha warrior types. I just can't get enough of them.
btw- I rarely remember my dreams. I can count on all tens fingers the dreams that stayed with me once I awoke. Five of those dreams are attached to the Forged Series. Including the opening scene to the second book.
Very strange!
Janice,
What was it about Dark Lover you didn't like at first? I've heard other people mention not continuing past the first chapter, but they never said why. I've always been curious about what it was that turned them off.
So far Forged in Fire has exceeded all my expectations. I never expected it to do so well, so quickly. Needless to say, I'm very happy about this though!
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